Caryl Churchill is a witty, often brilliant playwright who is sometimes ahead of the curve on intriguing issues. Her plays delved into gender fluidity, female empowerment, and environmental crisis long before those themes made the covers of popular magazines. It is therefore particularly frustrating that New York Theater Workshop reached into the back of Churchill’s vault to remount Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, a piece that examines the failures of both church and state during the English Civil War.
The scant story intertwines the lives of a variety of English citizens during the mid 1600. Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians imprisoned King Charles I, who is still supported by Royalists. Strict Puritanism has enveloped the Church, though there are whiffs of free consciousness and individualism in the air. Most of the action takes place off-stage leaving the bulk of the dialogue as passive conversation and exposition. A chunk of the play reenacts the Putney Debates: an attempt to rework the British constitution. Some historical knowledge is helpful for following all the verbiage and a brief outline is provided in an addendum to the show’s program.
As staged by the often whimsical Rachel Chavkin and her creative team, this production is particularly rough going. She employs what has become her trademark of having the actors in the aisles, but mostly keeps them arguing from chairs. The lack of physical interaction keeps the pace maddeningly slow. The first act is made almost literally airless by scenic designer Riccardo Hernandez’s decision to lower the ceiling. Isabella Byrd’s lighting includes faux candlelight for the shadowy Act I and florescence for Act II when illumination seems more in reach. The soundscape designed by Mikaal Sulaiman is thick and sometimes distorted. The wardrobe designed by Toni-Leslie James starts off mildly period, then moves to jeans and T-shirts for Act II. This section also includes anachronistic use of an iPhone, diet soda, and plastic bags. These may all be nods to today’s struggles with class and power, but the metaphors aren’t clear enough and the props by Noah Mease feel more like empty gestures.
The cast of LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE at New York Theatre Workshop, Photo by Joan Marcus
The make up of the cast is as broad and eclectic as possible. While this is fitting for the work, they are not equally strong performers. Mikéah Ernest Jennings is the standout, blessed with the most compelling through-line from household servant to preacher serving mankind. It is easy enough to see Matthew Jeffers’ magnetism as well as his dwarfism, though in stretches he speaks too swiftly and softly. Seasoned actress and activist Vinie Burrows really gets the play going, speaking up from the audience to interrupt a particularly paternalistic sermon. Evelyn Spahr is also given occasions to show her range, with opportunities to sing as sweetly as a nightingale and mewl Eliza Doolittle style. But performers Rob Campbell and Gregg Mozgala mostly get lost in waves of sameness. At several points the audience relies on the projected captions to tell them which of their characters is speaking.
Dour, preachy and repetitive, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire was an intriguing experiment written before Caryl Churchill found her true voice and rhythm. While the challenges of the English Civil War may have been compelling in the mid 1970s with its parallel rise of disenfranchised young people, the lines to the relatable aren’t clearly drawn. It is also difficult to become emotionally invested in any of these characters. There is insufficient differentiation between their roles and there is no one we get to know well. Though not completely lacking artistry, at 2 hours and 40 minutes this production is a test for even the loyalest of Churchill’s fans. The play continues through June 3 at New York Theater Workshop. Visit https://www.nytw.org/show/light-shining-buckinghamshire/ for tickets and information.
![Noel Joseph Allain, Julia Sirna-Frest, and Leah Karpel in [PORTO] -- Photography by Maria Baranova](https://theunforgettableline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/noel-joseph-allain-julia-sirna-frest-and-leah-karpel-in-porto-photography-by-maria-baranova.jpg?w=525&h=350)
I attended the performance of your play, Some Old Black Man, at 59E59 Theaters on Saturday, February 10. Co-star Roger Robinson was out sick, replaced by Phil McGlaston. I understand that Mr. Robinson has been with the production since the beginning and that it is your request that the show not be reviewed without him. Certainly I was disappointed not to see his turn as Donald, but it was a marvelous afternoon nonetheless. I wanted to take this opportunity to applaud your wonderful work in full view of my readers.
Many of us have experience working with someone who’s a big picture dreamer. Unchecked by a healthy skeptic — much less an opponent with a better idea — they good-naturedly lead their team down a path to The Emoji Movie or Pets.com. Greg Pierce starts out telling one such story in Cardinal in which Lydia Lensky returns to her hometown with the wild idea of literally painting it red. With tremendous enthusiasm and few facts, she persuades the locals that this gimmick will attract tourism and new business.
The Unforgettable Line 
This Flat Earth
“Are you there,” implores 13 year old Julie at both ends of This Flat Earth to anyone who’s listening. Nine students were recently killed in a school shooting, disrupting her feelings of peace, safety, and normalcy. This topic should be the springboard for compelling discussion. Indeed there are some threads about socioeconomic conditions and adolescent turning points that click. But for the most part, this is a ninety minute missed opportunity that ultimately promises that trauma will be all but lost beneath the unrelenting waves of everyday life.
Ella Kennedy Davis (Julie) and Lynda Gravátt (Cloris), Photo by Joan Marcus.
The piece is set in the recent past, and yet somehow Julie has no idea that hers is not the first school to have gone through such an experience. She believes that her persistent jealousy of a talented and popular girl who died might have caused the tragedy. In her program notes, playwright Lindsey Ferrentino tells how she experienced a similar sense of misplaced power when the incidents of 9/11 occurred the day after she had written a diary entry about the joys of peacetime. The transference of those feelings to sadly more common circumstance are diminishing to her main character. The excuse provided for Julie’s ignorance is that her father is too poor to have purchased a laptop. But even her best friend/would-be-boyfriend Zander seems to think the girl just hasn’t been paying attention.
The casting of Ella Kennedy Davis as Julie doesn’t do much to shore up the character as an interesting representative of her generation. While speaking too quickly at a very high pitch and slurring key words is all too realistic, it also left many of the audience members trying to keep up as they attempted to fill in the missed dialogue. Faring much better is the gifted Ian Saint-Germain, who captures the natural flow of Zander’s assuredness and awkwardness. Lucas Papaelias has trouble navigating the clumsy role of Julie’s father, Dan, but it is hard to tell how much of the difficulty is in the lines and how much in his interpretation. While no parent can protect a child from all dangers, widower Dan comes across as particularly ill-equipped and Papaelias often flails around in his skin. In the role of Lisa, a mother who lost a child in the tragedy, Cassie Beck is also constrained by her character’s limited responses. The only adult providing any constructive contribution is Lynda Gravátt’s upstairs neighbor Cloris. Naturally she can’t answer the impossible, but she delivers sincere and often amusing descriptions of effective coping mechanisms.
The talented director Rebecca Taichman does her best to underscore the truer emotions in the script by matching it with genuinely motivated physicality. Dane Laffrey’s two story set works wonderfully, though it could use a few more tonal touches. Costume designer Paloma Young has put together a fitting wardrobe, particularly with a bag of clothes that plays a critical role. Adding to the mood as well as forwarding the story is cellist Christine H. Kim under the musical direction of Christian Frederickson.
This Flat Earth is one of several recent productions that poses probing questions about the world we are leaving to the new generation. The Artistic Director claims it was never conceived as a production about gun violence, but opening just a month after events at Parkland it’s impossible to view it separate from that issue. Even when evaluated as an artistic expression, the play is wan when compared to similar offerings. While there are moments when the authentic psyches of the teens shine through, there are too many uninspiring stretches. Performances of this world premiere continue through April 29 at Playwrights Horizons. For tickets and information visit https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/flat-earth/.